The Sanity Project

May 1 silent film show: Short comedies

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged Internet silent movies on by

Because of other stuff I have scheduled in May, my next silent film show will be on the first Wednesday of the month instead of the second. That’s May 1, 8 PM EDT. The show, with my live accompaniment as usual, will consist of three short comedy films starring famous actors:

Scene from silent film Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde. Pryde (Stan Laurel) is menacingly approaching a boy with an ice cream cone.

  • The Goat (1921) with Buster Keaton. A case of mistaken identity leads to Keaton’s character being chased by everyone.
  • Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (1925) with Stan Laurel. This spoof is based chiefly on John Barrymore’s 1920 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Laurel was a noteworthy comedian by himself before teaming up with Oliver Hardy.
  • His Royal Slyness (1920) with Harold Lloyd. A prince asks an American who looks exactly like him to impersonate him, so the prince can stay with his girlfriend. Lloyd’s brother Gaylord, who looked a lot liked him, plays the prince.

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Kampala in 2028 is looking worse 1

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged conventions fandom Uganda on by

It’s no fault of the Kampala in 2028 bid committee, but the prospect of a Worldcon in Uganda in 2028 looks more frightening than ever. The Ugandan Constitutional Court has upheld critical portions of a 2023 law that criminalized homosexuality, allowing the death penalty in some cases. This would put some attendees in worse danger than they faced at the Chengdu Worldcon.

As the Freedom from Religion Foundation warns, the ruling “has disastrous consequences for LGBTQIA-plus Ugandans.” I don’t know why they repeatedly used that ever-growing letter salad, when the targets are specifically gays (or gays and lesbians, if you use the former just for men), but that’s just my obligatory jargon nitpick. The point is that con attendees might be in deadly danger just by being there.

I’m sure the bid committee didn’t want this to happen, but SF/F conventions in authoritarian states can put their members at serious risk. Better to hold the con somewhere else.

There are risks everywhere, of course. A man was recently arrested for making a bomb threat against a Michigan hotel while it was hosting a furry convention. The same hotel was threatened during last year’s con, which makes it likely the con was the target.

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged science fiction silent movies on by | Open »

Tomorrow as I post this (April 10, 2024) at 8 PM Eastern Time I’ll accompany Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film, Metropolis, on Twitch. It’s one of my favorites, with a futuristic city, an evil robot, and probably the first full-blown mad scientist’s lab in a movie. Twitch left my last two shows up for on-demand playing for about a week, and I assume they’ll do the same with this one, so you can catch it even if the show time is inconvenient. This is the restored 2 ½ hour version, and there will be a 10-minute intermission to give my arms a rest.

If you’re near Plaistow, NH, you can catch me accompanying it in person at the Plaistow Library at 1 PM on Friday, April 12.

A preview scene with my accompaniment is up on YouTube.

The numbering of musical works

This entry was posted in Music Writing and tagged music writing on by

The other day while driving, I heard a familiar-sounding piano sonata on WCRB. It was one I’d heard before, in fact one I was familiar with. I could accurately anticipate the music, which was obviously Mozart’s, in some spots. But I couldn’t place the damn thing! When I reached my destination, I stayed in the parking lot and kept the radio on to the end. The announcer said only that it was Mozart’s “Piano Sonata No. 2.” This wasn’t very helpful, since there are different numberings in different editions.

The numbering of musical works is tricky in general. For many composers, there are generally accepted numbers, but Mozart’s sonatas aren’t the only case where there’s confusion. Schubert’s symphonies are usually numbered 1 to 9, even though No. 7 is just a sketch. The “Unfinished” is No.8 and the “Great C major” the 9th in this scheme. Some lists, though, have just eight symphonies. They make the “Unfinished” the seventh and the C major symphony the eighth, or vice versa.
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The trouble with fannish gatherings

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged COVID-19 fandom filk science fiction on by

The latest SMOF News (Volume 3, issue 30) discusses the post-pandemic decline of in-person fan-run science fiction conventions, with Outlantacon being the latest casualty. It’s a situation I’m familiar with, since I’ve negotiated hotel contracts for several filk conventions and more recently couldn’t find a suitable hotel at a reasonable cost for NEFilk. Two factors make up the problem: rising hotel costs and decreased attendance.

Fan-run cons have always worked on the periphery of more lucrative events, such as weddings and gatherings of large organizations. To get space, we have to find a weekend that the other customers don’t want or fill up the space that they aren’t using. COVID killed a lot of hotels, and the ones that are still around want to make up for a couple of years of lost revenue. This means fewer discount deals. If we paid rates comparable to the big customers, we’d have to charge a membership rate of a couple of hundred dollars for a weekend con.
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